The FINANCIAL — The CSR Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Georgia (AmCham) intends to strengthen its corporate social responsibility and green directions and raise awareness of these in the regions of Georgia this year.
“The concepts of CSR and Green Business are more or less understandable to the companies operating in Tbilisi, but there is a huge problem with low awareness in the regions of the country,” said Margo Zhiznevskaya, the new Head of the CSR Committee at AmCham. “The AmCham CSR Committee is going to be involved in organizing trainings and workshops in the regions to raise awareness of CSR there. In general 2013 will be the most successful year for developing CSR in Georgia as number of companies (including Amcham members) have already planned internal and external programs, and one of them – British Petroleum – has started a countrywide programme promoting CSR. The project will involve many individuals and companies,” she added.
The Corporate Social Responsibility Committee at the American Chamber of Commerce was founded in the beginning of 2012. At that time there were more than 30 AmCham members who then became interested in the CSR Committee. Since then AmCham has been very active in implementing CSR projects in Georgia as well as contributing to the development of CSR throughout the country.
Race for Boston organized on Turtle Lake and Earth Hour held at the Sheraton Metechi Palace are some of the activities that the AmCham CSR Committee was involved in recently.
“We have several goals and strategies for 2013. These include assisting to develop a PR and advertising campaign to promote the image of businesses in Georgia; bringing economic development; cooperating with the anti-corruption concern under the Ministry of Justice on the relevant anti-bribery and anti-corruption issues; developing a code of ethics template and policy manuals to be used by AmCham members and the wider business community,” Zhiznevskaya said.
“Several factors contribute to the development of CSR in general and among them one of the most important is competition. It is competition that drives companies to find alternative ways to attract more customers and business partners. In the past, only large corporations were involved in CSR activities as the general opinion was that it required large capital to develop CSR, and was it usually associated with charity activities. Nowadays more and more small and medium-sized companies are becoming interested in being socially responsible. This tendency is not as widely spread as it should be, however the situation is changing rapidly and we hope to be able to see a certain positive results in the near future. One of the reasons why it didn’t happen before is that there was a lack of information in business communities as well as in society and the mass media,” she added.
Q. What is the profit for those companies who are actively involved in CSR activities?
A. Improving business processes inside and outside a company and raising its reputation are results of CSR activities for companies. These results are creating long-term positive prospects and improving the general reputation. If you are a company to work in, to work with and to buy from then you are definitely successful and profitable.
Q. How can a company plan the right CSR campaign to gain profit from it?
A. A company should ask itself: a) are my employees satisfied with the job they have? Do they feel the stability of the company and do they associate their private success to the company’s success? b) Is the company responsible to its suppliers, business partners? Will they choose the company over its competitors? Do they feel safe in cooperating with the company? c) Clients – are promises given to be promises kept? When they buy the company’s product or service do they feel as if they were a part of the company’s CSR programme, global environmental programme?
If a company has largely positive answers to these questions, then in all likelihood it has a good CSR campaign.
Q. What about the profit for the general public? How will they benefit from CSR campaigns?
A. Businesses involved in CSR work to improve the quality of life of the people in the local community. The more successful and profitable the company is – the more positive impact it can potentially have on society.
As for the company’s expenses for implementing CSR projects, I think that 3-4 percent of its budget will be enough for the start. It is absolutely possible to implement CSR projects with fewer expenses and gain solid reputation in the long-term perspective.
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